SIMMONS: Textbook triumph by Blue Jays with big plays up and down lineup​on October 5, 2025 at 2:54 am

Aaron Judge walked to the plate, based loaded, none out, sixth inning, the sold out crowd near silent and John Schneider for wanted to be sick.

For the moment, anyhow.

Nathan Lukes already felt sick — and it had nothing to do with the game situation.

“I was under the weather already,” he said. “Just trying to get through the night.”

The greatest hitter in baseball is a huge man, with giant arms, a giant smile and a bat that seems the size of an entire stadium. But Kevin Gausman wouldn’t or couldn’t succumb to Judge.

“I had complete faith in Gausman in that situation,” said Lukes. “It’s as simple as that.”

And then Mighty Casey struck out with the Blue Jays leading 2-0 in the sixth without any poem to reference. Gausman would face two more batters before calling it a rather sound playoff night.

And one more strikeout in the sixth worth remembering: Louis Varland, the deadline reliever who has been great and not-so-great as a Blue Jay, striking out a lesser giant, Giancarlo Stanton, to end the inning, again with the bases loaded, again with a gulp in every Canadian’s throat.

The Jays beat the New York Yankees 10-1 in a Game 1 of the ALDS that seemed like a laugher at the end, just not so funny in the middle innings. The Jays did what they’ve been doing all season long, battling against all odds, playing to their own narrative, almost every man mattering on a team that lives by its unlikely depth and its unlikely lineup and continues to defy whatever odds may still be against them.

This Blue Jays season has been something of a Stephen Stills song without any protests. There’s something happening here and what it is ain’t exactly clear …

But it’s happening. At least for one game and one win and a playoff series lead, it’s happening. Just as it has happened for so much of the 162-game season.

Gausman was terrific through five innings and fought his way through six batters in the sixth before giving way to Varland.

The relief pitching the rest of the way was near-perfect for Toronto.

The big-home-run Yankees were outhomered 3-0 by the not so powerful Jays. Judge didn’t hit one. Stanton didn’t hit one. But Alejandro Kirk hit two more — that’s four in his past two games — and probably more importantly, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. hit his first home run in almost a month and the first of his playoff career. And the fact it came in the first inning seemed to be a message all its own.

The Jays couldn’t start any better than they did in this series. They probably can’t play much better than they did.

They had excellent starting pitching from Gausman and even cleaner relief pitching from four who came after him.
For Lukes, the career minor leaguer who was in his first career playoff game, the night couldn’t have meant more.

“It was a dream come true,” he said afterwards. “I’ve waited a long time for this. “

Lukes hit two doubles, knocked in three runs, made a terrific fifth-inning running, diving catch off Jazz Chisholm that could have interrupted this very tight game early on.

These are your Blue Jays —everybody contributing something. Not always sure who or how.

Andres Gimenez scored two runs and knocked in two runs. Guerrero hit his homer and knocked in another run going 3-for-4. Even Anthony Santander got a hit, scored a run, and got on base twice.

This was the kind of collective effort, up and down the roster that has marked their success this season. Some 12 different Blue Jays made plays — pitching, hitting, defence — with the players holding up a mirror to their most surprising season.

It’s one thing to go 162 games of this kind of baseball but sometimes playoffs get in the way of post-season possibilities. Just not from this Game 1. These were the Blue Jays of June and July and August. Your Jays.

“That game kind of sums up our season right there,” said manager Schneider. He then listed his players almost man by man. Great day from Kirk. Great day from Vladdy. Great day from Andres Gimenez, which is something he has said very often. Great pitch from Varland.

“Kind of just going down the line, guys having productive at-bats and guys making plays in the field. That’s how we’ve done it all year.”

This was Game 1. There’s another game on Sunday. There are games Tuesday and maybe Wednesday in New York.

Momentum doesn’t come from winning 10-1 in baseball. Momentum comes from the next day’s starting pitchers.
That’s the kid, Trey Yesavage, for the Jays. That’s the veteran, Max Fried, throwing for the Yankees. What happened Saturday, exciting as it was, the atmosphere at the Rogers Centre was close to remarkable, gets pushed aside for the day.

But they couldn’t have started any better. This was textbook Blue Jays.

“That was the blueprint,” said Schneider, “of how we’ve done it all year.”

ssimmons@postmedia.com
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